


the complete(ly biased) and (un)sourced history of the dawn king

by brosura



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, all major character deaths implied, reincarnated!noct and pals start a conspiracy theory blog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-01 19:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11493375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brosura/pseuds/brosura
Summary: Nox knows the legends surrounding the Dawn King.The thing is, he also knows the legends arewrong.





	the complete(ly biased) and (un)sourced history of the dawn king

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it is me again, with another self indulgent AU based off a [spur of the moment tumblr post i made](http://brosura.tumblr.com/post/162598271071/oh-my-god-yall-ffxv-reincarnation-au-where-its).
> 
> takes place ~1000 years post-canon and all the boys will have slightly different names bc -drinking wine directly from the bottle- everyone ya know & love is _fuckin dead_ y'all, but i think they'll be fairly obvious to place as one of the bros especially since i took very very many liberties with the idea that like, ppl in the future would name their kids after "legendary figures" like noctis and his pals 
> 
> anyway, ignore the bad times, friends! it is the future where the sun rises every day, everyone has wifi and noctis and his party were rewarded for their accomplishments by being reincarnated and getting to experience puberty one more time, one more fucking time. 
> 
> enjoy!

Nox knows the legends.

He’d have to, with a name like Nox. It’s not an unpopular name, but there’s a certain _expectation_ that comes with naming children with a derivative of the King of Light’s name. If names are an embodiment of the hopes and dreams parents have for the future of their child, naming them after the Dawnbringer carries a particular kind of weight, suggests a certain destiny of grandeur.

Not that Nox would know, though.

He doesn’t care for attention, and that’s all his name brings him. _Especially_ when they’re learning (re-learning) their ancient history and the teacher of the year decides to ask Nox what he knows about his namesake, the Last King of the Crystal, Noctis Lucis Caelum.

So, Nox knows the legends.

The thing is, he also knows the legends are _wrong._

* * *

It starts when he’s only a small, tottering child.

He still can’t read very well or spell his last name right every time, but he knows something’s wrong when their teacher has them all sat around to hear about the Dawnbringer and mentions that his companions were _“chosen for him at the time of his journey by the Crystal.”_

“That’s not true,” he pouts. He’s still a child, so he hasn’t learned to filter himself yet, he just calls things as they are. “They were his friends. _He_ chose them!”

His teacher makes a joke that _Nox_ must have special insight, sharing his name with the Dawnbringer, but she laughs at him like she knows he’s wrong and finds it cute and quaint.

And he feels upset because he _knows_ he’s right.

He doesn’t know much but he knows he’s _right_ about this.

* * *

The examples keep stacking up as he gets older.

It’s hard to avoid the legends about the Dawn King, arguably the most important king in the history of Lucis, when they come up practically every holiday and every school year. And it’s harder to avoid how _wrong_ he knows they are, how many liberties they’ve taken with the actual facts.

But the worst part has to be that he _can't say why._

He’s been taught the same history as everyone else, so he can’t say why he thinks all these things.

He can’t say why he hears his grade one teacher say, _“The Regalia was an ancient vehicle, made specifically for the King of Light,”_ and corrects with, _“It was his_ dad’s _car.”_

He can’t say why, when their guest teacher in grade four mentions that _“the King’s Shield, Gladiolus Amicitia, was the last of his family line,”_ he pipes up with, _“He had a little sister.”_

He can’t say why he hears that the King’s Advisor was blind at birth in middle school and raises hand to ask, _“He was blinded during the King’s journey, wasn’t he?”_

And he can’t say why, when his high school’s history teacher tells them that the King’s third companion was from the minor Lucian noble household named “Argentum,” he thinks, _“He wasn’t even_ from _Lucis, he was a commoner from Niflheim.”_

He’s stopped correcting people out loud by the time he’s in high school, though, since their responses are always the same. Something cheeky about his _name,_ then that amused laughter of someone that thinks they’re right. Occasionally, he’ll get a half-hearted question about why he thought that, when the only answer he had was, _“it’s just a feeling,”_ and those questions were almost unbearable because, again, he _can’t say why._

That, and there’s no way to correct the commonly taught _“Shiva was a sentient blizzard”_ with _“Shiva was first one big blue naked lady and then she was many blue naked ladies”_ without sounding like a horny teenage smartass.

So he’s stopped correcting people out loud, but the thoughts still cross his mind, unbidden, every single time they go over the King of Light’s legends.

He’s sixteen when he decides he’s had enough.

* * *

He can’t be making this up, he _can’t_ be.

That’s what he repeats in his head as he signs up for his library card with a grim kind of determination. It’s the weekend after the Dawnbringer’s festival, and he’s past his tipping point.

The thoughts are too clear, too detailed to be things he’s just imagined. And why would he make all these things up? Why would he construct a coherent, detailed narrative of the Dawn King’s life? One that (more often than not) directly contradicts what’s taught by most leading authorities?

He _can’t_ be making this up. Someone, somewhere out there must agree with him, must get the story _right._

The Insomnia Public Library has the most complete collection of documents from the history of Lucis outside of the Archives and the Historical Library in Lestallum, and it’s the best a teenager with nothing but a library card to his name can get.

He spends the weekend searching tirelessly for something, some picture, some article, some document, anything that can prove even one of the claims his mind seems set upon once a cursory skimming of the history books proves that the authors are unhelpful and incorrect. The little old lady at the front desk recognizes him by Sunday, something he’s equal parts relieved and embarrassed about. She seems happy that a “young man like yourself” is interested in ancient history, so she lets him take pictures of the books to bring home and unlocks one of the computers so he can use it to e-mail documents to himself.

With her help, he thinks he finds his first lead.

It’s an ancient picture, scanned into a book, of the King’s third companion, Prompto Argentum. He looks rougher than the paintings they have of him in the history books, posing for a picture in front of some statue. Younger, too. More cheerful, more human.

It’s a little sad to think about, how young they all were when they’d had to make the journey. It doesn’t strike him as strange that he, with all of his sixteen years, thinks of _them_ as young when they were all adults and older than him by that point. After all, Prompto’s grinning and freckled in the faded out picture, a bright and timeless image of youth.

And he looks… familiar somehow, and Nox finds himself unexpectedly relieved at the sight of him. The feeling of seeing a friend in a crowded place.

The relief becomes less vague and more concrete when he looks more closely and sees a thin black band strapped securely around one of Prompto’s wrists. His mind immediately jumps to the Niflheim Magitek Trooper Program.

He’s not sure how it’s so vivid, when it was a throwaway line in a book he’d barely skimmed through the other day, but he’s immediately drawn back to the (well-documented) fact that Niflheim would regularly brand their MTs with a barcode on the wrist. Sources were unclear on how MTs were actually made, but the prevailing theory was that all Niflheim citizens were branded as part of the military at birth and were sorted into designated duties later in life.

Something about that doesn’t seem completely true to Nox, but he’s just happy that there’s something in writing to corroborate his gut feelings for once. After all, for a young Prompto Argentum living in Lucis, his identity as a defector from Niflheim was probably a secret he kept closely. With, perhaps, a thin black wristband.

And it’s a stretch to make the jump, but Nox feels like this is the best proof he’s going to get to back up the idea that Prompto Argentum was from Niflheim and not a Lucian noble like everyone seemed to think.

But he’s in a pickle, because there’s a conflict brewing inside him between the pent-up frustration at being laughed at for sixteen years and the compounded shame of being laughed at for sixteen years.

So here he is, with the first inkling of the proof he’s been looking for this whole time, wanting to simultaneously tell no one and _everyone._

* * *

He decides on a blog.

He’s had to make one before, one of his English teachers was set on making them practice by journalling, so it’s not exactly new territory. He sets up the website (a free to use thing, he’s not spending his slim allowance on this) and does the best he can to make things look passable before downloading his content and organizing it. He takes hours to write up his theory for his first post on another document and to read over it meticulously so he’s not discredited over something as stupid as grammar.

It’s only as he’s writing the title of the post - something intentionally eye-catching, like “Dawn King’s Companion a Former Niff?” - that he gets the strange feeling in his gut that he’s about to share something _very private._ An inexplicable guilt sits low in his chest as he scrolls past the picture of Prompto, young and full of life. He feels like he’s betraying him, somehow.

But he’s so sick and tired of having _nothing_ to back up his claims, so pleased to finally have something, _anything,_ that he swallows his qualms and posts the document before he can second guess himself.

He tries to comfort himself with the fact that the blog’s on such a large platform and on such a niche topic that no one would find it anyway, and the part of him screaming to tell everyone is satisfied, at least. He intentionally ignores it for the week while he’s at school and finds all the (incorrect) “fun facts” on Ancient Lucian History after the Dawnbringer’s festival bearable for the first time in a long time.

* * *

He almost forgets about it entirely, but he logs back onto his junk e-mail to check if any of his subscriptions had any updates or there were any sales he could get in on and finds an e-mail notification that someone had commented on his blog post.

He doesn’t want to check it at first, he’s so convinced it’s just some asshole telling him he’s over-thinking, or making stuff up, or whatever. Then curiosity overpowers the anxiety and what he finds is not what he was expecting by a long shot.

 _I totally thought the same thing!_  The comment reads. _And no one believed me!_

There’s a small paragraph detailing almost exactly what Nox had been going through the past sixteen years - the commenter had also been convinced of several facts concerning the Dawn King’s party that no one else seemed to agree on - and some information that’s new to him. Namely, that Prompto Argentum was likely created _specifically_ for the MT Program and that MTs were humans exposed to the Scourge. The commenter apologized that they didn’t have any backing for this claim, but said that they’d look into it since Nox had done his part to put together that Prompto was from Niflheim.

Nox is honestly just relieved beyond belief that he’s not the only one, that someone else out there has felt the strange isolation, the need to know more and know _why._ He feels an immediate kinship with this perfect stranger, so he’s more than willing to extend his hand first, so to speak.

He clicks on their icon to see if there’s a way he can privately message the commenter and finds both _that_ and a name.

_Argent. 15. Lestallum._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now WHoOOooOOo could THAT be????????  
> (it's prompto y'all)
> 
> next up, everyone else and the Education System.
> 
> as always, leave me a comment or give me a [lil yell](http://brosura.tumblr.com/ask) on [me tumblr](http://brosura.tumblr.com/).


End file.
